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“My father then said, ‘Mike, I’ve told you how dinosaurs went extinct. An asteroid crashed into the Earth. The world first became a sea of fire, and then sank into a prolonged period of darkness and coldness.… One night, you woke from a nightmare, saying that you had dreamt that you were back in that terrifying age. Let me tell you now what I wanted to tell you that night: If you really lived during the Cretaceous Period, you’d be fortunate. The period we live in now is far more frightening. Right now, species on Earth are going extinct far faster than during the late Cretaceous. Now is truly the age of mass extinctions! So, my child, what you’re seeing is nothing. This is only an insignificant episode in a much vaster process. We can have no sea birds, but we can’t be without oil. Can you imagine life without oil? Your last birthday, I gave you that lovely Ferrari and promised you that you could drive it after you turned fifteen. But without oil, it would be a pile of junk metal and you’d never drive it. Right now, if you want to visit your grandfather, you can get there on my personal jet and cross the ocean in a dozen hours or so. But without oil, you’d have to tumble in a sailboat for more than a month.… These are the rules of the game of civilization: The first priority is to guarantee the existence of the human race and their comfortable life. Everything else is secondary.’

“My father placed a great deal of hope in me, but in the end I didn’t turn out the way he wanted. In the days after that, the eyes of those drowned birds always followed me and determined my life. When I was thirteen, my father asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I said I wanted to save lives. My dream wasn’t that great. I only wanted to save a species near extinction. It could be a bird that wasn’t very pretty, a drab butterfly, or a beetle that no one would even notice. Later, I studied biology, and became a specialist on birds and insects. The way I see it, my ideal is worthy. Saving a species of bird or insect is no different from saving humankind. ‘All lives are equal’ is the basic tenet of Pan-Species Communism.”

“What?” Ye wasn’t sure she had heard the last term correctly.

“Pan-Species Communism. It’s an ideology I invented. Or maybe you can call it a faith. Its core belief is that all species on Earth are created equal.”

“That is an impractical ideal. Our crops are also living species. If humans are to survive, that kind of equality is impossible.”

“Slave owners must also have thought that about their slaves in the distant past. And don’t forget technology—there will be a day when humanity can manufacture food. We should lay down the ideological and theoretical foundation long before that. Indeed, Pan-Species Communism is a natural continuation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The French Revolution was two hundred years ago, and we haven’t even taken a step beyond that. From this we can see the hypocrisy and selfishness of the human race.”

“How long do you intend to stay here?”

“I don’t know. I’m prepared to devote my life to the task. The feeling is beautiful. Of course, I don’t expect you to understand.”

Evans seemed to lose interest. He said that he had to go back to work, so he picked up a shovel and a saw and then left. When he said good-bye, he glanced at Ye again, as though there was something unusual about her.

On the way back, one of Ye’s colleagues recited from Chairman Mao’s essay “Remembering Bethune”: “‘Noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests.’” He sighed. “There really are people who can live like that.”

Others also expressed their admiration and conflicted feelings. Ye seemed to be speaking to herself as she said, “If there were more men like him, even just a few more, things would have turned out differently.”

Of course, no one understood what she really meant.

The task force leader turned the conversation back to their work. “I think this site isn’t going to work. Our superiors won’t approve it.”

“Why not? Of the four possible sites, this has the best electromagnetic environment.”

“What about the human environment? Comrades, don’t just focus on the technical side. Look at how poor this place is. The poorer a village, the craftier the people. Do you understand? If the observatory were located here, there would be trouble between the scientists and the locals. I can imagine the peasants thinking of the astronomy complex as a juicy piece of meat that they can take bites from.”

This site was indeed not approved, and the reason was just what the task force leader had said.

*   *   *

Three years passed without Ye hearing anything more about Evans.

But one spring day, Ye received a postcard from Evans with only a single line: “Come here. Tell me how to go on.”

Ye rode the train for a day and a night, and then switched to a bus for many hours until she arrived at the village nestled in the remote hills of the Northwest.